


Vale, amice

by Aelfgyfu



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelfgyfu/pseuds/Aelfgyfu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacob and Selmak near the end of "Threads"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vale, amice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sg_fignewton's Gen Fic Day in August, 2009 and specifically for Jacob Alphabet Soup. Many thanks to Brilliant Husband (aka dudethemath), who proofread two different versions of it, and to redbyrd_sgfic, who gave a quick but very helpful beta reading. I think the strengths are due largely to Redbyrd and the weaknesses are mostly mine. Thanks also to night_spear1287 for reminding me about the vocative. The typos are definitely mine, all of them. 
> 
>  _Stargate SG-1_ and its characters belong to MGM-UA, Gekko, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions, Stargate SG-1, Showtime/Viacom, NBC/Sci Fi, and no doubt other persons or entities whom I've forgotten (this list keeps getting longer). No copyright infringement is intended. In fact, my stories make no sense if you haven't seen the shows, so I encourage you to watch! And get all the DVDs! Just like I do!

"Goodbye, friend," Selmak whispered into their minds. Everything around them still roared and Dakara shook as though it wanted to throw them off the now-loose pieces of Replicators, but Jacob could hear Selmak's parting words with absolute clarity. Then Selmak relaxed his grasp on consciousness and slipped beyond where Jacob could feel him.

The sudden emptiness overwhelmed Jacob. Silence. Absolute silence. The duet in his mind—their minds—had ended. His stomach dropped and his knees weakened as he reached inside and found no one but himself. 

"Dad?" Sam asked.

"I'm all right," Jacob told her quickly, pushing back off the console onto which he found he'd leaned. The silence was not only in his head: the weapon's vibrations had ceased, the Replicators had stopped, the shooting had ended, and even the echoes had died away. He had missed a few moments.

Jacob managed to keep his composure in front of his daughter. He slipped away from the weapon as soon as he decently could, past those tending to the bodies of those who had fallen keeping the Replicators from the weapon's console. He went halfway around the small building that housed the weapon console and found himself out of sight of everyone. He wanted to be alone. Ah, but that was the great irony: he really didn't want to be alone. He had thought he would never be alone again. 

He could remember being newly blended with Selmak and his resentment that she knew everything that crossed his mind. Her? Even the pronoun took him back. When had he stopped thinking of Selmak as female and started thinking of him as male? That he could not remember, and even Selmak's memories yielded no one moment. The transition must have come as they both fully accepted the blending. Selmak was part of him. It became natural to think of them both as male, though Selmak had long favored female hosts and had previously thought of herself as female. The change came not just to Jacob's mind, but to Selmak's as well. 

Jacob sat on the ground, his knees up in front of him and his back against the rough-looking structure that held a technological marvel. Even Selmak had been impressed with the weapon, but Jacob's sense of amazement seemed now to be draining out onto the hot sand. He knew he should feel gratitude for their salvation, wonder for the workings of this amazing device, and awe or even fear at its power. He could barely muster a sense of relief. Sam had survived—no, Sam had triumphed. Much of the credit for saving the galaxy should go to her, though God knew if she would ever receive her due recognition. Mark would never even know he and his wife and Jacob's grandchildren had been in danger. Jacob himself would not last very much longer.

When  his wife had died, Jacob thought at first that he couldn't go on living. He'd been wrong. This time, he knew he couldn't go on living, a certainty borne not from grief but fact. Given a choice, Selmak would have died without taking Jacob with him. The Replicators had taken that choice from them: both human and Tok'ra were needed to defeat them. Selmak made certain that weapon had succeeded, but then he'd let go.

The knowledge that he could not live beyond a few months at most did not trouble Jacob. He felt a slight surprise at his own calmness, but he could already feel that life without Selmak had lost much of its color and texture. He rested his head against the stones behind him and closed his eyes for a moment. He would have to go back inside soon, before Sam came to ask if anything was wrong. He inhaled the warm, dry air, stifling the urge to cough at the thick dust so recently flung into the air, and he thought how much Selmak had liked such climates. Jacob had long preferred cooler temperatures himself, but Selmak had slowly won him over to the arid regions the Tok'ra favored. He wished he could believe that at some level Selmak enjoyed the planet with him right now, but the symbiote had become a dead weight, something he could just barely perceive at the back of his skull but not quite touch in any way that mattered. Never again would they argue, or share a private joke, or console each other for the losses they'd suffered in Jacob's decades and Selmak's millennia. 

Jacob couldn't complain, though. He'd gained the best years of his life from the joining, a time full of wonders and important work and renewed bonds with both his children. He'd need to draw on that happiness he'd had with Selmak to propel himself through the next few weeks. He would be alone again for a little while only. Selmak had held on for Jacob; Jacob could hold on for Sam. His daughter was getting married. He would see her achieve the happiness she deserved, and then he could let go. He would also see Mark and the grandkids one last time; he felt a rush of gratitude towards his companion for reconciling him with his son. He pushed aside the terrible hollowness he felt as his mind kept automatically reaching for Selmak's, and he sought instead to focus on the unexpected joy he'd found in their six shared years. Selmak had helped him secure not only his relationship with his children, but the safety of their planet. 

Selmak had fought his own failing body to save the people they both loved, and he had won all their lives. Jacob would give away his daughter on a world safe from Replicators and Anubis. In the meantime, he could mourn Selmak only in private. He remembered the ancient language of the Church of his youth, and it seemed fitting here in the ruins of the Ancients. "Vale, amice," Jacob whispered to his now-silent companion. 

FIN


End file.
